The Best Parts of My Week: 11/10/14--11/14/14

Hi everyone,

     As we paused this week to honor our Veterans, I had many opportunities to feel grateful for the freedom that our Veterans worked so hard to preserve for us and future generations........

.....This week we finished up our Cooperative activities unit and I asked my third and fourth grade students to assess their behavior and learning during the unit.  Students "walked and talked" with a partner as they self-assessed and I was so impressed with their honest conversations!

.....Fifth grade students finished their work on our traverse rock wall this week.  One partnership was so focused on sharing the climbing and spotting time that they wanted to know how much time they had and asked me to let them know when half of the time had expired.  They certainly wanted to be fair to each other!

.....On our day off to celebrate Veteran's Day I had a wonderful opportunity to take a hike with my husband at a local preserve that has trails down to the Hudson River.  It was a great walk and it felt good to be outside enjoying our freedom!

.....Our Fuel Up to Play 60 Student Ambassador group met for the second time this year and I am so impressed at their responsibility and willingness to help!  We had a great meeting and finished up the time with some activity!  I recently learned about a site called Go Noodle which has some great ideas for classroom activity breaks.  We tried one out as a group and had fun!

.....Two of the areas that our principal has asked special area teachers to focus on this year is our use of questioning strategies and the use of vocabulary words with multiple meanings.  This week my primary students are learning about levels and I asked my students to talk to a friend about what levels are, why they are important, and where they are used.  What a great discussion!  When I asked students to share what they talked about they came up with a variety of terrific responses and many multiple meanings of the word levels!  In addition to talking about the use of levels in space (low, medium, and high), one student talked about levels in terms of learning and another talked about them in the context of a tournament and how winning a game gets you to the next level!

.....I had a great conversation with a student this week about how his strength and endurance has improved during the past year!  He explained that he had been working hard and that he was now stronger and could run longer than in the past.  I am so proud of him!

.....We had a great Healthy Highway assembly this week to introduce our next road - Charity Way.  Students listened to a book by Todd Parr called The Peace Book and then were asked about what Peace is.  Students had some great responses and were then challenged to work hard to ensure that everyone has "enough"......enough good feelings, enough food....enough warmth.......enough time......enough safety....enough love.....When everyone has "enough" there can be Peace........We have many school-wide events to accomplish this task and it is always heartwarming to see students rise to the challenge.

.....At the end of the week I was talking to a class about responsibility for fitness.  I explained that while PE was a great start, students needed to take responsibility for their own fitness by exercising outside of school.  One student shared her view of this in such an amazing way that I wish that I had taped it!  She explained that while she does not belong to a team or organized group, she wants to stay healthy and fit so one of her strategies is exercise before she watches television!  How great is that!  I told her that if more people had that attitude the world would be a healthier place!  

I hope you enjoyed the "Best Parts of My Week!"  To find out more about the PE program at North Park, visit my website:  North Park Physical Education